


Homecoming

by Kiba Rika (touchedglitter)



Category: Firefly
Genre: Gen, Siblings, Space Flight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-03
Updated: 2013-08-03
Packaged: 2017-12-22 06:42:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/910126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/touchedglitter/pseuds/Kiba%20Rika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Simon has to keep River entertained on the flight to the Academy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homecoming

River pushed her face a little closer to the window. Now her nose was completely squished against it. She tried not to blink. She didn’t want to miss a thing. She had been off-planet at least forty-three times before, but each time felt like the first. She marveled at the stars. “It takes the light of a star so long to reach the human eye that by the time we see it, the star might have been dead for thousands of years. A star could die and there would be no one to give its eulogy until after all trace of it had disappeared.”

“River, move back. You’re dirtying the window,” her mother told her.

“These windows are treated to immediately disperse any condensation from the moisture in my breath. They also have a protective coating that prevents any damage to them from the oils my skin produces. Your scolding is just a vestigial maternal behavior. In time, mothers will delight in their children pressing their faces against windows. They’ll see it as a valuable learning experience.”

“Gabriel, do something.” Regan Tam turned to her husband, hoping to draw his attention away from the portable sourcebox to which he had glued his eyes the moment the pilot turned off the “No Cortex” sign.

“Simon, entertain your sister.”

“What are you studying in your first term at The Academy, River?” Simon asked. River knew he was just making conversation. She had read her course schedule aloud to him ninety-six times at home before they left, and another thirty-one before they took off. She held it tightly in her hand. She had rolled and unrolled it twenty-eight times in the past hour. Simon knew it was the only thing she’d be willing to talk about while they were flying; anything else paled compared to the miracle of space.

River decided to humor her brother. “I’m taking Ancient Literature of Earth-That-Was. In the original languages. Latin and Greek. Hebrew. Aramaic. I am hoping they will teach us some Proto-Indo-European. At most schools back at home we’d have to read all of the texts in translation.”

“And which texts will you be reading?” Simon prodded, speaking a well-rehearsed line from this oft-performed dialogue.

“All of the great classics – the Iliad and the Odyssey, Aristotle’s Poetics, Vergil’s Aeneid. Great tragedies like the Oedipus cycle and the Oresteia. The comedies of Aristophanes, Plautus, and Terence. Everything Plato wrote. More obscure texts from the Oxyrynchus Papyrus. The Torah and Talmud. All the known gospels, including those not in the Bible. The histories of Thuc – “

“Haven’t you read all of those before?” Simon interrupted.

“Yes.”

“In the original languages?”

“Yes.”

“Then why are you so excited about reading them now?”

“Because,” River answered, sighing laboriously to demonstrate what a dullard her brother was for not having figured the reason out on his own, “before, no one would discuss them with me. Shall I go on?”

“Why don’t you tell me about your other classes?”

“The Physics of Astronomy and Space Travel, which will include the history of said travel, and an in-depth exploration of how various spacecraft are able to move through space. We’ll analyze current vehicles and discuss why older models have been superceded. We will also – “

“You seem especially interested in the past,” Simon said. “Don’t you have any classes that have to do with the present?”

“Advanced Mathematics,” River responded. “Not that you’re interested in hearing about it.”

“I might be more interested if you hadn’t memorized and recited the course catalog a thousand times already.”

“It wasn’t a thousand,” River pouted. “It was only seven hundred fifty-three.”

“Close enough. Even so, I’ll play along.”

“No,” River said. “No, no, it’s fine. I understand. You don’t care about my exciting new life at my exciting new school.”

Simon glared at her. She was wearing him down, she could tell. He hated when she even pretended to be upset.

“Please, River?” he said softly. “Please tell me all about your exciting new life at your exciting new school.”

“Well… only because you asked so nicely. They have a full staff of arts professors. Theatre, dance, shadow puppetry, orchestra. There are five hundred thirty-three student-run clubs. The dormitories are – “

“ – arranged by interest,” Simon finished for her.

“And a democratically elected representative body of students participates in – “

“ – all Academy decisions,” they spoke together.

“Jing-tsai, mei mei,” Simon complimented her. “You know more about the school than the headmaster probably does.”

“Thank you, sagwa.”

“River, don’t insult your brother unnecessarily,” their father muttered. Their mother sighed.

“I just can’t keep up with the two of you,” she said.

“PREPARE FOR PLANETFALL,” the computer’s voice came over the spaceship’s address system.

“We’re about to hit atmo!” River shrieked in excitement. She pressed her face against the window again. This was her second favorite part, watching as the planet got bigger and bigger. Seeing the buildings go from toys to giants. She loved planetfall every time, but this time it was special. This time, for the first time, she was coming home.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Lost and Found (The Homecoming Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4238721) by [Spiralleds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spiralleds/pseuds/Spiralleds)
  * [Lost and Found (The Homecoming Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4238721) by [Spiralleds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spiralleds/pseuds/Spiralleds)




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